The remaining tunnel had been built to act as a temporary aircraft storage and troop shelter in case the United States used weapons of mass destruction. The entrances and the tunnel walls were heavily reinforced to act as a nuclear shelter. Additional ventilation was added and the facility designed to withstand any kind of air drop, from bombers or ICBMs. Like the other tunnels, there were heavy doors on each end. In this case, the doors were over one-foot thick and swung inward when not in use. When the air raid sounded, the traffic stopped in the tunnel and the huge doors swung closed and locked shut. A second set of doors rolled into place behind those forming an air tight seal.
The truckers turned off their engines and began walking around in the lighted tunnel. Many lit up cigarettes and shared a few moments with other truck drivers secure in the knowledge that they would be safe from anything the Americans would throw at them. The guards and sentries were smiling and urging everyone to relax and remain calm. Everyone was certain the raid would be over soon. If not, they had enough supplies to keep them alive for weeks.
One of the drivers decided to take this time to check out a smell he had been noticing coming from his engine. He climbed down from the cab and pulled open the hood. It was hard to tell where it might be coming from since the engine was filthy and there was oil and grease caked everywhere. Looking under the valve cover, he noticed that oil was dripping out of a small crack onto an exhaust pipe. Grunting to himself, he grabbed a rag and wiped it clean, then used a tube of sealer to cover the crack. It was a standard thing he had been forced to do since there were never any spare parts. A driver had to be inventive in his repairs.
“Problems?” asked one of the post sentries with a smile.
“No. I had a small oil leak but I fixed it. I smelled it through the vents all the way here,” he said to the sentry. “At least I won’t have to smell it the rest of the way,” he said.
Satisfied the problem was solved, he wiped the surface one more time, then closed the hood. As he was getting down he noticed a section of black pipe resting against the side of the tunnel road. It looked like the kind of pipe used when putting up a building. The black sealer had been marred where the pipe had fallen and scraped along the roadbed. “Looks like somebody lost something,” he said walking over to the pipe.
The guard looked over that way and waved it off. “We get things falling off trucks all the time. Had a whole load come loose a couple of weeks ago. Took forever to clean up,” he said nonchalantly.
The driver looked at the pipe. “I’ll put it in the truck and take it with me. Maybe one of the Army units can use it,” he said. The man reached down and tried to lift the pipe. It was heavy — far heavier than a pipe should be. Curious, he took one end and lifted it up. Wasn’t a pipe supposed to be hollow, he wondered?
A split second later the driver, the guard, the truck and everything within 1,000 yards of the pipe was vaporized. The temperature went from a normal 80 degrees to the temperature of the sun and turning everything, from the steel in the trucks, the concrete and the rock surrounding the tunnel into a white-hot molten mass. Great gouts of escaping air shot out of several places in the mountain. The huge steel doors at first contained the blast. But they had been designed to withstand something exploding over them, not coming from within the tunnel itself. The containment within the tunnel magnified the blast effect, and the doors could not contain the dynamic onslaught. Both ends blew outward as the doors were ripped from their hinges and flung over a mile away. Smoke and heat radiated from the entrances, and molten rock and steel spewed out of the tunnel like a volcano into the forest on both sides, setting the trees on fire and flinging more debris far away from the tunnel entrances. People within two miles of either entrance were thrown from their feet as if there had been a tremendous earthquake. At the same time, the mountain itself appeared to lift from its base and collapse downward as if something had lifted it six or seven feet and dropped it. Suddenly the blast ceased as the molten center began to cool and the mountain began filling in the void of the explosion.
Crews hurried to get to the entrance to find out what happened, but there were no traces of any entrance — only a road that appeared to stop along the side of the hill. Even the loose dirt and what scrub that wasn’t burning looked like it hadn’t been disturbed.
In a small radio station set up by the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service, several reporters watched as a shortwave transmitter was set up to broadcast a live signal to the world. Only one man had been selected and approved for a live broadcast. His material had general approval and he would be operating with a five-second delay so that it could be stopped if necessary. Strangely, no one seemed to think there would be any problems. The script was in hand and seemed perfect.
The reporter was a fairly young man in his mid-twenties. His face was long and his dark hair was already receding. But he had the look of someone with experience far beyond his years. He was a professional and it showed. As the sound of the naval gunfire could be heard through the walls, the engineers powered up the system and prepared to broadcast. Preliminary messages were sent and replied to. Someone brought out an old RCA 77 ribbon microphone and stuck it in front of the man, who laughed and thanked the technician. The hands on the clock came to 10:30 and the technician pointed to him.
“This is Pusan, Jason Murrow reporting. The people of this city are rejoicing tonight. For months they and the people of South Korea have held out against the determined forces of North Korea. Yard, by exhausting yard they have fought, not giving up one inch of ground without a struggle. Yet the North Koreans, with their army of over a million strong, have pushed these people back until only a small toehold of their country remains.
“Still they fight on. These are a proud and determined people. Once before they fought against the oppressors from the North. Then too, with the help of the United Nations and primarily from the Americans, they were able to win back their cherished freedom. They have proven to be an industrious and freedom loving people who understood their responsibilities as a nation and lived in peace.
“Yet after decades of coexistence, the North saw fit to try and take away the freedoms these people had fought so hard to earn. To accomplish their goals, the North Koreans struck out against not only neighboring countries such as Japan and the Philippines, but took their vengeance out against the United States as well, unleashing weapons of mass destruction upon the people. Since that time, the South Koreans have fought hard. They have vowed to never give up their fight for the freedom they love. They and their American allies have come together once again to hold out as long as possible until the forces of freedom could be brought to bear.